Kevin Drum

Mark Zuckerberg has agreed to settle a vacuous lawsuit that Donald Trump filed against Meta years ago. Why now? Here's all you need to know:

Toward the end of the November dinner, Trump raised the matter of the lawsuit, the people said. The president signaled that the litigation had to be resolved before Zuckerberg could be “brought into the tent,” one of the people said.

A lovely post-election dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Maybe some relaxing chat afterward about Greenland and the Panama Canal. Then the ask: Trump "signaled" that the lawsuit had to be "resolved" before Zuckerberg could be "brought into the tent."

This is just straight-up extortion except that there's probably no proof and Trump, as always, chose the wording of his threats carefully. But the meaning was crystal clear and Zuckerberg jumped at the opportunity. What choice did he have?

Here's the latest from our illustrious leader:

Trump is half right. Hamas has long had a habit of making crude IEDs out of balloons and condoms and floating them over to Israel. However, no US money has ever gone to condoms for Gaza.

Which prompts the question: what was that $50 million actually for? Who knows. Whatever it was, I guess the Gazans aren't getting it anymore.

I've been feeling terrible for the past week, which explains my erratic posting. Today I felt even terribler, so I spent the morning in the ER and learned that I have the flu. Blah. But at least I know what it is. I'll probably spend a night or two in the hospital under observation.

A marine layer blanketing Oceanside at night.

The death rate from drug overdoses just keeps on plummeting. Between mid-2023 and mid-2024 it's dropped by close to half.

This is Highway 241, a relatively new toll road that passes through northern Irvine and connects north to Riverside and south to Coto de Caza. It's a handy shortcut for me when I go out to the desert for astronomy nights.

Just a quick note to bring some perspective to the tsunami of takes on DeepSeek. Keep in mind that it's open source and has been extensively and painstakingly documented. If it's as good as experts are saying, every one of its innovations will be adopted by other AI companies within a few months.

And then the race will begin all over. There may be winners and losers from this, but no one will ever have a permanent lead.

What in God's name is Trump talking about here?

This is beyond weird. It's hallucinatory. And even if it were somehow true that the Army TURNED ON THE WATER, California doesn't get any water from the Pacific Northwest or beyond. We get it from our very own Sierra Nevadas.

Is Trump really and truly losing it? Or does he figure he can just say anything he wants for the rubes? Or what?

All right, I get that Trump hates the World Health Organization, though I'm not sure why. It's Trump. But apparently withdrawing isn't enough. Effective immediately, nobody at the CDC is allowed to communicate with anyone at WHO in any way. Huh?

Then, this evening he paused all disbursements of federal grants and assistance—whatever that means—except for money that goes directly to individuals. He claims this amounts to $3 trillion, which is a fantasy, but it's a lot regardless. What's the point? What does anyone gain from all these weird pauses in funding aside from ending disfavored programs maybe a week or two earlier than otherwise?

And then he announced he was going to put tariffs on all chips from Taiwan. Apple is going to love that.

During Trump's first week I felt like I at least understood what he was up to. This week I'm feeling sort of flummoxed. What's the point of all this?

This is a harbor patrol boat of some kind leaving the Seal Beach pier right at sunrise.